Gotta Make It Work
by favoroftheorchids
Summary: 16 years later, Carly is happily married with kids. Freddie's back in town, and when disaster strikes, he and Sam are forced to work together. Will they survive?
1. Chapter 1

**This here is an idea I've had for quite a while, and one I've been writing for quite a while. So, tonight inspiration hit me and I was finally able to finish.**

* * *

_s . a . m_

"Car-_lee_!" Sam Puckett sang out, entering her best friend's home.

Instead of Carly, her twelve-year-old daughter, Rikki, appeared. "Hey Aunt Sam," she said. "I thought you lost your key."

Sam laughed. "Please," she scoffed. "Hi, Rikki. Where's your mom?"

Rikki shrugged. "Upstairs, I think."

"Great." She headed up to the twin babies' room, where she did find a frazzled brunette mother trying to change crying one-year-old Kyle and Katherine at the same time. Sam swiftly swooped in and fastened Kate's diaper.

Grateful for the help, Carly fixed Kyle's and then placed them each in their cribs before switching on the baby monitor and tiptoeing out of the room. She pushed her bangs back from her face. "What's up?"

"Nothin'."

"How was work?"

"Same old, same old. Few riots today I had to stop. That was interesting." Sam was a guard at the Ansalar Maximum-Security Prison, and one of the favorites of the prisoners because she could get along with them. Most of them couldn't believe a prison guard had actually been in prison.

Carly rolled her eyes. "What am I going to do with you?"

"You know you love me."

Now that they were downstairs, Sam grabbed a bag of chips out of the cupboard and shoved a few in her mouth. She paused and glanced at the bag. "Ooh, hey, salt and vinegar."

"Rik?" Carly called. Her daughter looked up from where she was typing on a laptop. "What do you feel like for supper?"

"Spaghetti tacos." Carly obligingly filled a pot with water and set it on the stove.

"Did your brother ever come in?"

"Nope." Eight-year-old Caleb spent most of his day out in their backyard with his friends. Rikki shut the laptop and stood up. "I'll go get him."

"Hey, you heard from Fredbag lately?" Sam asked. She referred to Freddie Benson, the third member of their trio. He worked down in L.A., both for Pear Electronics and as apart-time movie producer.

"A few days ago," Carly said as she chopped hamburger for the sauce. "And I really wish you'd stop using those silly nicknames. We're not in high school anymore, Sam, we're thirty-three."

"I'm aware of how old I am, you don't have to tell me," Sam retorted. "And it doesn't bother _him_ any. So it shouldn't bother you." She sat at the nearby table and popped a few more chips in her mouth.

"Well, still, I—" Carly sighed and decided it was safer to just drop the subject.

Sam stood up and perched herself on the counter where Carly was working. She stole a piece of dry spaghetti and started knawing on it. "Kevin gonna be home anytime soon?" Kevin Williamsburg was Carly's husband of thirteen years.

"He should be. He's taking me out tonight and you're babysitting."

At that moment, before Sam could protest, the door burst open and a small boy ran into the room, still excited and hyper, cheeks rosy from the February cold. "Hi Auntie Sam! What's for supper, Mom?"

"Spaghetti tacos," Sam said, then viciously bit the dry spaghetti, which crunched between her teeth.

There was a knock on the side of the house, but not one of them looked up, expecting that it was simply Rikki joking. "Just come _in_, Rikki," Caleb said exasperatedly.

"Hey," said a male voice. Now they looked.

Rikki was standing in the doorway, but next to her, was Freddie.

XXX

"Freddie!" Carly cried. Wiping her hands, she threw the towel onto the counter and rushed to give him a hug.

"_Ciao_," said Sam, picking a piece of spaghetti that had gotten stuck between her teeth. She plucked another piece from Carly's container. Freddie returned the greeting and took a piece of his own.

"Okay, what is this thing with dry spaghetti?" Carly cried. Sam and Freddie shrugged simultaneously. Sam began scribbling on a piece of paper that was lying around.

"So…what've you guys been up to?" Freddie asked awkwardly.

"Some dude at the prison today tried to escape so they put him in a higher-security cell," Sam announced casually, not looking up from her drawing. "And I finally got this other guy to talk to me, he's been quiet for months. Now he's blathering on about his daughter and how he wishes she'd forgive him, blah, blah, blah."

"You're so compassionate," Freddie said sarcastically, rolling his eyes.

As always, Sam was ready with a retort. "I can be, I just _choose_ not to be. It's not worth my time." Baby Kate laughed and clapped her hands, and Kyle copied her.

"See, Sam, now you're teaching your bad ways to the youth of America!"

"Good, these kids need to know how to have fun!"

"Hey!" Carly interjected.

"No offense, Carls," Sam added hastily, putting a hand on her best friend's shoulder for a second.

"Can you two feed the twins?" Carly asked, ignoring Sam's comment. Freddie immediately went over, picking up one of the puréed baby foods Carly had set on the counter. Sam stayed in place.

Freddie looked up. "Come on, Sam," he coaxed her. "It'll be like when we did Baby Spencer."

"But be gentler about it!" Carly cried.

"Yeah, hat she said."

Reluctantly, Sam folded the paper and stuck it in her pocket. She grabbed the other jar of baby food and popped the lid off, then jabbed the spoon in. She lifted it out and held it towards Kate's mouth, looking bored. Kate simply looked at her curiously. Sam threw the spoon down. "I'm done!" Freddie laughed.

"This baby's stupid! She won't eat!" Sam defended herself.

"Sam, you gotta do it like this," Freddie spoke up, ready to show her.

"What, just 'cause I'm a girl it's funny I'm not good with babies?" Freddie then proceeded to demonstrate the "Airplane" trick for Sam, sending the tiny goop-filled spoon everywhere before bringing it down to Kyle, who promptly opened his mouth and swallowed the mixture.

Sam's shoulders slumped. "Try it," Freddie urged. She did, and to her amazement, Kate willingly accepted the food.

"Oh. Now I feel stupid."

"Don't."

Once she was finally done with Kate, and Carly and Kevin were gone, Sam sat on the couch while Freddie was upstairs putting the twins to bed. She pulled out her drawing again and began to add more detail. It was just a quick sketch, but she liked it.

"That's _really _good."

Sam jumped at the sudden, unexpected noise.

"Yeah, well who asked you?" she snapped automatically, then it dawned on her what he'd said. "Wait…what?"

"That's really good," Freddie repeated, leaning against the back of the couch. "I like it a lot." He pushed up from the couch and walked away.

"Thanks," Sam managed to say to his retreating back.

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**Love it? Hate it? Can you think of a better title? Let me know!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Well, it's been too long since I updated this story, and I was suddenly hit by a burst of inspiration tonight. Hopefully, you can expect another update tomorrow, but that depends on how much homework I get.**

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_f . r . e . d . d . i . e_

Sam was probably the world's worst babysitter. She simply sat in front of the TV and did nothing except draw. Unfortunately for Freddie, that meant he was left doing all the work.

Not that he should have been surprised by this at all.

"Uncle Freddie, is Auntie Sam coming up?" Caleb asked eagerly as Freddie chose pajamas for the boy.

Freddie laughed. "Have you ever met your Aunt Sam? She's not moving from that TV."

Caleb looked crestfallen. Freddie sighed and went to the stairs, calling down, "Sam, get your butt up here! Caleb wants to see you!"

"Nice to know you're thinking about my butt!" she yelled back.

Freddie rolled his eyes. "That's not what I meant and you know it! Just get up here!"

"Maybe!"

He returned to Caleb's room and opened his palms. "There you go, you got a maybe. You're lucky. Not just anybody can _maybe_ get her to move."

"Why would you think about Auntie Sam's butt?" The kid's face scrunched up in disgust. "It's a _butt_."

Freddie sputtered. "W—what?"

"Auntie Sam said you were thinking about her butt."

Still in shock, Freddie groped for words, any words. "Of course not," he managed eventually.

Caleb shrugged. "Okay." Freddie let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding and that, naturally, was when Sam appeared.

"Alright, what'd you guys want?" She sounded bored and slightly annoyed. Probably was, Freddie figured.

"To say goodnight!" Caleb cried happily, throwing his arms around both of them. He then threw himself onto the bed and lay ramrod-straight. "Tuck me in." Freddie did so, and then just before he shut off the light Sam ruffled the boy's hair.

"Night, kiddo. Don't let the bedbugs bite."

Sam and Freddie exited the room, shutting the door behind them, and then they heard a feeble, "Bedbugs?" Freddie shot Sam a glare.

"There's no bedbugs!" Sam said quickly. "That's…that's just something your Aunt Sam made up. No bedbugs. None." They waited a moment, but nothing else was said.

"You really love these kids, don't you," said Freddie. It wasn't a question.

She walked away, down the stairs, back to the TV and the drawing she probably had waiting.

* * *

With the twins and Caleb all in bed, Rikki approached Freddie next. "Want to play cards, Uncle Freddie?" He gladly accepted; his and Rikki's card battles were infamous.

"What this time? Uno or Phase 10?"

She thought a moment. "Phase 10." They sat at the table and Rikki began shuffling.

"Don't do the grandma shuffle, Rik," Sam called out from the couch, right near the table.

"I'm not," Rikki huffed. The "grandma shuffle" was the way Carly's mother used to shuffle cards, by simply taking them from random places in the deck and sticking them into other random places in the deck. It took a while and generally annoyed people. Rikki had always done it before, but recently she had learned to shuffle "normally."

Sam dragged herself off the couch and over to the table, switching off the TV. "I'll get in on this," she said.

"Sam, this is our game," Freddie complained.

"Well, I wanna play too. Is that a crime, O Master of Cards?"

"_Tocas_," Freddie grumbled, sighing. He knew he'd never win, not against her. He never used to and he never would in the future, either. That was just the way he and Sam were destined to work.

"Well, _gracias _then." Freddie ignored her and concentrated on the cards Rikki was dealing out, picking them up one by one and then, once he had them all, sifting through and organizing them to go in order of number.

"You're so slow. You know, some of us actually want to play the game, Grandpa." He continued to ignore her and the obnoxious snoring noises she had begun to make till he was finished sorting. He picked up a card, glanced at it, threw it out. Rikki followed suit, then Sam, and so on. As usual, the game was peppered with outbursts such as "Oh, come on, gimme a good card!" "Bastard!" "Help me out here." "Stinker." "What makes you think I'd want a stinking _twelve_?", and, of course, the cry of "Uno!" when someone had only one card left—even if it wasn't the right game.

"What'd I tell you, Rik," Sam cried when Freddie went out for the third hand in a row. "_Always skip Uncle Freddie._" Freddie stuck his tongue out at her. Rikki giggled at them. "But do you listen to me?" Sam continued. "No. And that's why your Uncle Freddie is winning. And that itself is a travesty."

"Been reading the dictionary for insults again?" Freddie asked with a smirk, already starting to shuffle and deal out the cards.

Sam smiled proudly. "Yep. Coccydynia." The second word was directed at him, and he rolled his eyes. "Alright, Fredley, hurry up and gimme cards." She clapped her hands and rubbed them together in anticipation.

Forty-five minutes later, everyone had managed to make it to the final phase, and everything was down to the wire. Sam went down first, and then Rikki. Freddie had only one card left to go, then he could go down and out—when just before his turn, Rikki threw the one she had just picked up down on Sam's cards and threw the other one away, winning the game. She leaned back victoriously in her chair and propped her feet up on the table. Freddie instinctively pushed them off, and Rikki stood. "Well, I'm gonna go to bed. Night."

"Night," Sam and Freddie echoed simultaneously. As soon as the preteen was gone Sam looked up at the clock on the stove for the first time that night. "Hey, shouldn't Carly and Kevin be back by now?"

Freddie shrugged. "Kev probably rented a hotel room for them. You know, get away from the craziness of the kids for a night."

"You're probably right," Sam conceded. "Hey, betcha ten bucks she gets pregnant again tonight."

"Is there any point in betting if we both think the same thing?"

"Not really." She paused, then, "Wanna do it anyway?"

"Sure." They shook on it, and Freddie opened the note app on his PearPhone and added the bet to the list of ongoing bets he had with Sam. The List wasn't short by any means, and it grew nearly every time they were in the same room.

"I think I'll head to bed too," Sam said. "I've got an early shift at the prison tomorrow."

"Isn't it at eleven-thirty?"

"Yeah. See, _early_." Freddie laughed, then told her to throw down some blankets for him, to which she responded "no;" however, within moments of her going upstairs, a pile of sheets and blankets landed with a _thump _on the bottom step, followed by a foam pillow (the kind he liked but she hated), and he smiled.

* * *

Freddie was awakened the next morning by repeated rapping on the door. He blinked slowly and yawned, then stumbled to his feet and to the door, pushing aside the curtain to see who it was.

A cop.

Freddie's brow furrowed and he opened the door, and the cool breeze that hit him made him suddenly aware he wasn't wearing a shirt. "Something wrong, Officer?" He responded to the cop's "who are you?" question, and then the cop, who introduced himself as Officer Huntington, asked if he knew Carly and Kevin Williamsburg.

"Uh, yeah, I'm one of Carly's best friends," he said groggily, head spinning slightly. "Why? Did something happen?"

"You might want to sit down," Officer Huntington said gently.

"Can I just get Sam first? She'll want to hear this too."

"Your wife?"

Freddie's eyebrows shot up. "NO! . _Nooooo. _She's Carly's other best friend. We were babysitting here last night." He darted up the stairs and to the master bedroom, where Sam had commandeered Carly and Kevin's king-sized bed for the night, and was currently sprawled across it, tangled in a sea of blankets. Freddie took a second to marvel at how such a small body could take up so much of such a huge bed before waking her up the best way he knew how: by first shaking her gently, then slapping her, running away to avoid her right hook, and finally screaming that there was a cop at the door. She shot out of bed instantly.

"Freddie, what the hell?! What're you waking me up for?" she said irritably, posing with her hands on her hips.

"There really _is _a cop, and he's got something to tell us about Carly and Kevin," he cried frantically, taking her by the wrist and pulling her down the stairs, ignoring her protests.

"Now," Freddie said, "what was it?"

"You must be Sam," Officer Huntington said, and she nodded. "The car registered to your friends Kevin and Carly Williamsburg was found off the side of River Road at seven o'clock this morning," he began, before he was cut off with cries of "Oh my God!"

"The bad news is that they didn't survive the crash," he said as kindly as possible, "but the good news is they were likely dead instantly—no pain."

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**I promise not to leave you **_**too **_**long with that. I've already started the next chapter. Also, "coccydynia" means "pain in the butt," and Phase 10 is an awesome game. There.**

**Oh, and because I got bored, Sam's and Freddie's pajamas are in a Polyvore link on my profile.**


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